Broncos coach John Fox waits for a replay call in the first quarter. <a href="http://photos.denverpost.com/mediacenter/2011/10/photos-broncos-vs-lions-sunday-october-30-2011/23348/"><b>More photos from the Broncos vs. Lions game Sunday.</b></a>

Not to suggest the NFL is rocket science, but building a playoff contender with Tim Tebow at quarterback is like flying to the moon in a space shuttle made from Lego blocks.

What on heaven or earth could Broncos coach John Fox have been thinking when he took the big gamble of trying to win pro games by putting complete faith in the run and declaring “pass” a four-letter word?

Good question.

“If this didn’t work,” Fox told me Tuesday, “we would have been saying the same thing to ourselves inside the building: ‘Hey, what were we thinking?’ “

If the Broncos somehow make the playoffs, Fox deserves a bigger trophy than coach of the year.

How about a Nobel Prize for inventing this hot-tub time machine that Tebow and the Broncos have ridden back to AFC West title contention?

Tebow is an undeniable, storybook winner, with his legend only writ larger since he took over as starting quarterback of a hopeless, last-place team, then rallied Denver to three victories in four games.

But maybe the real football miracle worker here is Fox.

The Broncos’ magical victory tour has rolled through Miami, Oakland and Kansas City with a quarterback the league openly discredits as a passer. The big mouth of New York Jets coach Rex Ryan was the latest to risk wrath of Tebow Nation by disrespecting the young quarterback.

“Obviously, going against Denver, their priority is to run the football, and you have to stop it,” said Ryan, doing a little baiting of the Broncos in advance of a showdown Thursday night. “You don’t have to worry about playing pass defense or rushing the passer, because they won’t throw it.”

OK, now Ryan has really offended anybody with a No. 15 jersey hanging in the closet. Doesn’t Ryan realize Denver is a town of Little League mothers and fathers who have adopted Tebow as their favorite son? Any slight, real or perceived, will not be tolerated.

For example, there’s the wacky conspiracy theory that won’t die. Broncos executive John Elway and Fox secretly want Tebow to fail, because he was a first-round draft choice of Josh McDaniels, generally considered the biggest knucklehead ever to roam the Denver sideline.

“That doesn’t make much sense to me. Like buying a Ferrari and pouring sugar in the gas tank,” Fox told New York media during a conference call.

And then there’s this cockamamie notion: Despite ripping up his playbook in the middle of the season, asking NFL athletes to turn the clock back 60 years to drop the forward pass like a bad habit and doing everything short of treating his QB to an ice-cream cone after every victory, we are supposed to believe Fox has been slow to go all-in with his support of Tebow?

Balderdash.

“I’m his biggest fan. The kid’s a competitor,” Fox said, explaining why he designed a run-heavy, read-option offense around the skills of Tebow.

“No knock against anybody else, but the quarterback we have now likes this stuff. He has a bigger body. Running is one of this guy’s strengths. Put in this offense and some quarterbacks in the league would look at you like you had three heads. Tebow feeds off it. He likes the physical part of football, and it’s a little bit unique. He can pass. But this is an ability (Tebow) has that most quarterbacks don’t have in this league.”

Of course, an unproven NFL quarterback must prove his worth on a weekly basis. That’s only fair.

But how could Fox not like Tebow?

By running straight through conventional wisdom, Tebow is making his coach look like a genius.

If running the football 55 times a game had flopped, we also know Fox would look like a dang fool.

“It’s not like we were setting the world on fire. I mean, we were sitting there with a 1-4 record,” Fox said. “We had to find out if something else could work.”

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